swans
by just like our last
Summary: I can't help it, I love you like a starfish loves the salty water, like a selfish daughter


_. how ._

Brad listens as she whispers the words so well rehearsed, so simply tangible and fragile, so full of lies and regrets. "I love you, I love you, I love you." He knows she doesn't, but he can't bring himself to correct her, because he can't admit that he doesn't love her either. She watches sadly as day fades to night and night fades to sunrise, and everything fades away into another day. And suddenly it's one of those days where it's cloudy almost as though the sun decided it didn't want to come out today.

It's that day that she turns to him, blue eyes large and wishing, and begs him to take her out into the world. He does, and buys her a hotdog and watches as her hand slips out of his, their fingers grazing past each other more slowly than they should. Her pretty cream French coat and his sweater and the way she blushes when she looks at him, from more than just the cold, makes them feel like a movie, as though they are watching themselves fall away from each other from an outsider's point of view, as though they can here the viewers whispering and crying and thinking that in the end they'll end up with the right people, the people they wanted, but he knows that they won't.

This day is supposed to be one of summer; it is mid-July and not even the weather man could have told them it would be chilly enough for a sweater and a coat on a day about town. Today, she leads him to the docks, the cold oceanic winds lapping at their faces as she lifts his hand in hers, closes her eyes, and just laughs. She laughs because she knows that if she doesn't, in such a raw place as this, with such a wrong person as him, she knows she will start crying. He knows this too, so he just runs circles in the back of her hand with his thumb, laughing with her as they lift their hands to the sky and breathe in the sultry air.

At some point she does start crying, tears streaming down her round face as she laughs, her face still to the clouds, her eyes still confused and somber. She looks over at him and he just looks at her, saying without words that he knows the way she feels, that he wishes he could fix her and that they could fix each other, but they can't.

Why they pretend they can, she's still not sure.

So she snuggles her head into the crook of his neck, her blonde hair tickling his chin, and acts like she is sure, acts like she can't feel the lump that rises in her throat as he leans in to kiss her, as she opens her still crying eyes and can almost feel the wind on his cheeks the same way it brushes her own.

In the back of her mind she etches out a poem, something she might scribble down later on the corner of a crowded piece of loose-leaf between college chemistry notes if she's lucky, that goes something like this:

_On a piece of sun_

_I draft your eyes_

_The swans that come_

_To make you mine_

_Though you will never be_

It doesn't quite make sense, but Melanie knows nothing ever does, really, and she kisses him again and realizes that when he pulls away, there is relish on his lips that she assumes was on her own lips a moment ago from the hotdog she ate earlier.

"I gave you relish," she giggles, and he frowns, lifting his hand to wipe it from his face.

"Thanks for that," he mumbles as he wipes his hands on the dock post to get the relish off.

Behind them, far away, she can see the street that leads out to the beach, the cars zipping by on the highway, leaving them behind. Everything feels different here, against the open waves with her palm pressed to his, their lips dangerously close to another kiss which happens a moment later. Everything feels softer, almost more likely to break than it used to be.

_. they beg, and each time they leave no warning . _

A more painful lick is masked into the way Carly's tongue grazes him, almost too daintily for the way he throws her up against the wall, their sweating bodies pressed against each other, hot and wanting, the push and pull harder each time. When all is said and done, they fall onto the bed, her head on his chest, her tasseled brunette hair sprawled over his abs in any way but graceful. She pants, and his gaze meets hers.

"This is wrong," he says.

And all she can say is, "I know."

But maybe it is supposed to be, maybe they are all meant to be wrong, maybe they are simply a group of doomed people, meant to ruin each other's lives until the day they die. Maybe now that the days of the webshow are gone, and they are adults – or are supposed to be adults, anyway, but certainly don't treat each other like adults – they are supposed to kill each other with the way they sleep with the wrong ones, with the way they are never quite satisfied with who they have.

Because Sam and Freddie fight and Carly and Freddie cheat and Gibby knows but doesn't speak, and Melanie and Brad pretend to love each other but secretly don't. They all miss each other, miss nicer things and sharper laughter, and _oh_, how they miss the faces on fruit and the meow of the cat in the wall that came with teenage years they soon forgot.

_. the lightning shines but does not speak . _

It breaks harder than it should, and Sam can taste the lies on Freddie's lips when she kisses him, ringed hand meeting ringed hand that used to hold a promise, but doesn't really anymore, because he's sleeping with her best friend and can't bring himself to tell her. Sam's pregnant stomach presses against him and he swallows, unable to congratulate her because he knows she knows the truth behind the lies the swaddle their first child.

Months later, a baby boy comes into this world, and Carly is right there at Sam's side after he is born, her smile wide, yet still hiding what she knows she should not have to hide, because it should not be there to hide in the first place. But the scratch marks and the way Freddie sneaks home late at night are still too obvious, and none of them really know what to do enough to fix it. The baby somehow makes it worse, somehow leaves Sam alone more often than not and leaves Carly feeling more guilty than ever, somehow leaves Freddie caught in the middle of it all because he knows Carly and Sam can never hate each other, especially over him.

He watches as the little boy's first words come to be "Aunt Carly," watches as Carly takes more responsibility for the little rascal than he knows she wants to, watches as her loyalty towards Sam overshadows her lust towards him, and they stop seeing each other, slowly at first, but then the evenings become further and further apart until they forget where they left off and it doesn't matter anymore, because Benedict is two years old and Sam is pregnant again.

_. you didn't have to love me the wrong way . _

Spencer is the one she breaks down on, is the one that watches Sam cry on the floor as any hormonal pregnant woman might, but this is _Sam_ after all, and he knows it can't just be hormones from how hard the tears are coming. He wraps his arms around her and carries her bridal style to his couch, the same couch that used to live in the Shay's little apartment, back when they still lived in the corner of Seattle that felt so much like home. It is more worn down and dusty now, but still holds the feeling of home, still summons more emotions to Sam than it should, still makes her cry harder and lean onto Spencer's shoulder and whisper, "_I hate Freddie_," over and over again.

Spencer just gently brushes the hair from her face and makes lame jokes, because that's what he's always done, and Sam realizes then that he is lucky, that he changed the least out of all of them when his sister left.

He takes her to the grocery store and buys her as much meat as the cart will hold, and they go back to his place and cook it all up and Sam remembers back when he used to feel like a big brother to her all the time, realizes how badly she misses having his strange flammable tendencies around to make her laugh.

They make sandwich after sandwich until they cannot eat another bite and the kitchen is a mess, and Sam laughs and tells Spencer that she hasn't been this happy in a long time, not since before she found out Freddie was cheating. Spencer gives her a hug before she leaves, and promises to see her again soon.

_. they waver past her face as she dies ._

He can't hear her anymore, he realizes, can't hear her as cries out in pain because their second child is on the way. Carly is there, late into the night and watching Benedict, who is worried for his mother's sake, soothing him on her shoulder as they drive to the hospital, telling him that Mommy is fine, that Aunt Carly is here and everything will be alright. And still he can't hear her over the guilt pounding in his ears, over the lists of reasons she should have left him long ago, over the places he could be right now, over the apologies he never spoke. Phrase after phrase saw through his mind, echoing in his ears over Sam's screams and Carly's soothing words and their son's confused sobbing, and nothing makes sense and everything seems to stop. But he _can't_ stop now, not when Sam needs him. He has to keep driving for the wife he doesn't even deserve.

So at some point after a few weeks, when the new baby and his older brother are both sound asleep, he confronts Sam in the kitchen, late one night as she makes herself a sandwich.

"Sam," he starts, and by the look in his eyes Sam knows exactly what he wants to say. He swallows and says, "I'm sorry."

Sam nods, not sure what to say. Finally, she says, "I hate you," the very words he spoke to her after their first kiss, years and years ago now.

"Hate you, too," Freddie echoes, and he knows what she means, knows that even though he can never forgive himself, she forgave him long ago, her eyes still full of doubt as he leans in to kiss her goodnight.

_. but all in all the train moves slowly . _

Melanie knows the story, knows what Freddie did to her sister and to Carly, knows how he broke the heart of each significant girl in his life piece by piece. Melanie knows because they both told her, because Gibby did not deny it when she asked him, because she watches the missing lines between Brad and Sam as they meet, watches as she realizes her fiancé still prefers her sister and probably always will. Still, she wants nothing more than to hurt Freddie, to smash in his face for all the pain that he caused to her and her sister and her sister's best friend. She knows it is not fair, knows it should not have to end this way, that it should not have even started this way.

All of this she blames on Freddie, because the only reason she allowed him to cause her heartache was so that her sister could be happy, but he ended up breaking her sister's heart anyway.

The most painstaking thing, she realizes, is giving up what you wanted the most for someone to be happy, and then realizing that it didn't make them happy after all.

Melanie is welcomed for the two weeks she spends visiting, is squished into a hug by Carly the next day and is happily welcomed by Benedict and Adrian as Aunt Melanie. With Melanie and Brad there, something changes in the household, something less awkward and almost sentimental in the way they are all together again, inviting Spencer and Gibby over to play drinking games after the kids have gone to bed.

After Melanie and Brad go back to where they came from, it breaks again, but not quite as hard this time.

_. still your wings are sprawled so ugly ._

Carly falls apart too, overwhelmed by the same guilt she knows still haunts Freddie even after months and months of not seeing each other, haunting her the way she wishes it wouldn't.

One night after a long day of babysitting for Sam, she gives Sam a hug before she leaves, whispering "I'm sorry" into her ear as she pulls away, hoping Sam will know what she means. The look on Sam's face tells her that she does. The look on Carly's face tells Sam just how sorry she is, and she knows that even though the apology is far overdue, it is still just as real, just as easy to forgive but hard to forget as ever.

"You're my best friend," is all she says. Carly nods because she knows, knows she always will be and never wasn't, even back when she was cheating with Sam's husband, even back when everything was so bitter tasting.

_. the pen stopped working but still left a mark . _

Each of them never stops loving each other, the way best friends never do. They may grow up, but in the depths of their hearts are the memories they wish they still lived within, the ways they want to speak to each other day after day. It never truly gets better, but it never gets worse, either. A story is never complete, never meant to have a perfect ending. It is the force that keeps Carly up reading late into the night, unable to sleep with the regret that plagues her soul, slowly killing her. That very same force is the reason Sam and Freddie prepare their home for a third child, the same reason no one comes to Melanie and Brad's wedding, all knowing it will hurt too much. It is the same force that leaves Spencer and Gibby still bachelors, leaves each of them sending inside jokes to each other on post cards that never arrive, leaves the poem Melanie etched in the back of her head that day so long ago still unwritten. It is love, regret, hatred, fate, and a million other strange ideas that never actually made sense to anyone.


End file.
